Coffin Island

by Will Berkeley

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” I shrugged. “Even I could use a toot.”

  “Probably go down like razorblades,” Madison said.

  “It’s a grim beverage to begin with,” I agreed.

  “Magical rum is a horror,” Professor Coffin confirmed.

  The Red Lady clamored over the side of Doctor Fast. A glass telescope popped up out of the shoreline boulevard like a mushroom. The telescope tried to catch her eye. However The Red Lady ignored the all-seeing eye of Crypt Island. The glass peeper got stood up by The Red Lady. There are some things in this magical book that you just cannot explain.

  “Don’t you want to see where you’re going?” I asked. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  “It’s a bit refracted compared to peering in your book at Coffin Island,” Professor Coffin said. “However it makes up for it with brevity.”

  “You need to look through that telescope to see your future,” Madison said.

  “You’re going to get lost in this world of glass, madam,” Professor Coffin said. “I can’t be the eyes for both of us.”

  “You can’t pave your own path if you look through that glass,” The Red Lady said. “I’ve been here before.”

  “That’s how you break the magical leash,” I marveled.

  “You ignore witchcraft,” The Red Lady shouted.

  “Thanks for telling us,” Madison said.

  “I thought I was going to kill you,” The Red Lady said.

  “Wouldn’t we have seen it in the glass?” I asked.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” The Red Lady said.

  “You’ve been here before?” I asked.

  “You’re all doomed,” The Red Lady said.

  “We’re doomed?” I asked.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Madison said.

  “You’re the one that is walking away from your fate,” Professor Coffin snuffed.

  “I’m going to drink myself blind,” The Red Lady said. “Then kill myself.”

  “Get back here and look through your glass like a man, you old fraud,” Professor Coffin shouted.

  “There goes the Venus of the buccaneers,” Madison snorted.

  “The final hook of piracy,” I said.

  “You’ll never get me to look through that glass,” The Red Lady shouted. “I’m drinking myself blind and then killing myself. That’s my future.”

  “We heard you the first time in the past,” Madison said.

  “We don’t buy your act,” I said.

  “We’re steaming towards the future,” Professor Coffin proclaimed. “Against my will, I might add.”

  “I’m traveling into the past,” The Red Lady shouted.

  “Boats against the whatever,” I shrugged.

  “Who are we to judge that murderous old biddy?” Professor Coffin asked. “Come back here for more judging, you old bat.”

  “We see if something pops out of a doorway in Old Havana in glass,” Madison said.

  “It better not be a gentleman caller,” Professor Coffin huffed. “I should have boarded that shipwreck when I had the blasted chance. Give the old rape a whirl.”

  “You could have seized life by the hook,” Madison said.

  “She was a fetching zombie,” I said.

  “Take her on a date in your coffin if she turns back,” Madison said.

  “That blessed box is old-fashioned and not commodious,” Professor Coffin growled. “Please do not touch upon that tender spot again.”

  “The guy talks about pillaging,” Madison snorted. “But he gets tight about his coffin.”

  “I don’t know if he’s running our test,” I laughed. “He’s just too screwy.”

  The Red Lady limped down an alley into Old Havana in glass. She had to briefly use a wall for support. She appeared to be polishing some blood off her bag lady shoes with her right hook. It was heartening to see that the old broad still cared about her appearance in spite of her horrible looks. Vanity was still alive and kicking in that rotten shell. The old horseshoe crab still had it. She could still eat dead flounder in the shallows.

  I was feeling optimistic though. The old murderess was a cause for celebration. She was down and out in Old Havana in glass but she wasn’t a quitter if you didn’t count the planned suicide. She was on the hunt for that one last toot at the embarkation gate for the afterlife. The last rum before she boarded the great beyond. Who could argue with that?

  Although there didn’t appear to be any bartenders for the pour. Or any poison for the glass. Perhaps the far side was just beyond her reach. One last shot before the great beyond was looking like a decidedly long shot. That green light on the end of the dock with the ogre manning the lamp was looking decidedly red. But I couldn’t help but admire the underdog lurking in the kennel of her soul. Only a fool wouldn’t applaud that. Give it up slow clap. Snap those fingers beatnik style. Pass that jug around too. Why not throw Miles on the stereo?

  Chapter

  “Magic doth make a hideous bedfellow,” Professor Coffin declared. “It reminds me of the old days when I used to climb into the sack with a savage with a bone through his nose. Back in my whaling days in New Bedford when I was chasing the pink whale.”

  “I thought it was white,” I said.

  “Pink,” Professor Coffin confirmed.

  “Professor Coffin,” Madison snorted. “Stop joshing us.”

  “It’s true,” Professor Coffin bristled.

  There were shipwrecks splintered all over the glass breakwater of Old Havana in glass including Doctor Fast. I was no longer viewing that astonishing craft as my vessel. It was just another gentleman’s trash. Something for the magical dump truck to haul off to the magical transfer station. What’s another shipwreck in a story like this? I could easily shrug it off. The more shipwrecks the merrier, I thought. What’s a skeleton coast without any bones? You’ve got to have ivory on that coast. It’s not called the Ivory Coast for nothing. The primordial sharks would never tolerate a Carrot Coast. That’s for the killer rabbits.

  I was also trying to view the shoreline garbage as optimistically as possible. I didn’t need another gentleman’s garbage weighing me down. I wasn’t thinking that the magical dump truck had been delayed. Or that the magical dump truck had broken down. Or that the dump had exploded in a cacophony of fire. The magical midden had been cordoned off and declared an unfit pit befitting anymore refuse due to a raging underground inferno of horrific proportions. I wasn’t thinking anything like that. How could a pessimist survive in this hideous world? Hope was the flame that was keeping the flicker alive. It was the magical candle that couldn’t be blown out. It just kept relighting itself. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a cruel joke, Happy Birthday.

  I was viewing all the garbage that was littering the shoreline of Old Havana in glass as a favorable sign. The garbage was a physical demonstration that there was human life in this world. Human life was alive and thriving. Garbage was a very good sign once you looked past the eyesore. The dead don’t litter. Garbage equals civilization. The more refuse the merrier. Let’s trash the joint.

  However there didn’t appear to be any survivors picking through the rubbish that was awaiting pickup from the magical dump truck whatever the delay. There weren’t any survivors clad in trash bags sifting through the wasteland. Where were the mendicants? Were there no holy vagrants in this world? There weren’t even any dump seagulls feasting on the refuse. Raining guano down on the holy mendicants clad in trash bags. Shouldn’t there be at least one dreaded creature from The Great Chain of Being strolling along this grim shore? Asserting its horrible nature.

  Fresh meat had just arrived on the doorstep of Crypt Island with a bloody thump. The butcher had cometh. The heart was still beating in the ribcage. The creatures were panting with fear. It doesn’t get any fresher than that. We would run if something dangerous gave chase. We were sporting creatures as it were. But where were the predators in the bloody smocks to greet us? Were their chainsaws in the shop? Per
haps the axe murders had peacefully died of starvation. There had to be a sensible explanation for the lack of butchery in this world.

  However I wasn’t hopeful because there weren’t any skeletons on this shore. The skeletal remains of the last creature standing had gone missing. What happened to it? Had the flesh fallen off it? Then the creature’s skeleton had walked off? I was thinking that it should have eaten itself for a little bit to prolong the inevitable. A fierce little creature could chew itself down to one arm while waiting for a meal that was not forthcoming. Show you where your fragile existence was headed in this world. First you eat your legs and then you eat your arms. Where was the hope in this world?

  There wasn’t a single meatless digit to point the way. Perhaps something was just eating the bones. The last creature standing in this world was breaking down bones to an imperceptible amount of dust. We were breathing the ashes of the dead in atomic amounts. The bodies along with the lives that they had once contained were too immeasurably small to calculate never mind ponder at this depth. There had to be a sensible explanation for all of this. History was always explicable when you looked back and fabricated freely. You worked freely towards your thesis and erased anything that didn’t support it.

  A savage creature was eating everything on the island. The creature’s digestive tract featured fission. Bowel movements included atomic cremation. Don’t worry about the gamma rays. Your nuclei can handle it. There is nothing to fear here in magic’s Third World. It’s just an oversight by the gods in the heavens that this shore is currently depopulated. Something truly horrendous will lumber along shortly. Then it’s sayonara Booster Boo. What’s the symbolic importance of a glass island with nothing on it?

  Unfortunately I was stuck with the narrator’s task as the author was previously engaged with his tiddlywinks. His heavens were above my security clearance. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what drove him. Perhaps the cat in his hat was operating him. What do you make of a trickster operating a trickster? He’s one tricky cat.

  I was sadly tasked with the unrewarding task of trying to read the signs and symbols of this world to guide my safe passage through it. Not that it had gotten me anywhere glorious thus far. The signs and symbols of this world were like allusions to another man’s allusions. It was like living in a police state with pranksters for cops.

  The magical cop seemed to delight in directing me towards the crash. That ogre was toying with me when he wasn’t laughing at me. He was gesturing for me to cross when he wanted me to stop. He was putting typhoons at my back when the wind was supposed to be gently pushing my hair back. Was that ogre mocking me as a form of an endearment? Should I put my mind at ease?

  You wouldn’t mock something if you didn’t truly care about it. You would just leave that complicated task to somebody else. You would not deride a worthless person. You could not be bothered. Not only is that person beneath my contempt but I am far too busy mocking the ones that I truly care about. I am deeply invested in scoffing them. You’re lucky that I am currently ignoring you instead of outright ridiculing you. My schedule is just too full with important forms of ridicule. I haven’t got the time to even recognize you never mind harass you to death. Perhaps being burned at the stake was a cause for celebration. Your enemies believed in your powers to the point of clamoring for your immolation. Who couldn’t admire such a compliment as the flames licked over your head?

  Was I beginning to see the vague outlines of a larger design? Or was that just another moment of delusional clarity? One last gasp before the permanent madness took over and started operating me? Witchcraft poured in whatever flammables they had into the tank and turned the crank. What’s a Molotov cocktail without a fuse? Why not stuff a rag in the tank and light that too?

  Had the rum from Coffin Island become madness and poured itself into me in this Third World of witchcraft? Or was I just another empty vessel in a world that was constructed entirely out of glass?

  I wasn’t even worth killing apparently. That was a pretty harsh insult right there. Whoever was running this world didn’t think I was a threat. I wasn’t dangerous enough to warrant killing. I aimed to change that. Whoever was in-charge of this world was going to die at my hands if I could only figure out the creature to attack. Something needed to go into the crypt on Crypt Island and it wasn’t going to be me.

  Unfortunately this magical world wasn’t like the real world. It wasn’t quick to provide pat explanations that flew in the face of reason to put your mind at ease. Everything might happen in this world for reasons. However the reasons defied reason. Moreover the reasons were vague and unknown. And they moved around like mercury if you tried to put your finger on them. Perhaps the real world and this world shared more in common than I had originally thought. Insanity was looking like a serious thread.

  Chapter

  Fortunately a glass Cadillac pulled up on the shoreline boulevard to end my descent into madness. I had been musing in that magical maze for far too long. You make a habit of looking too closely at the human condition and you’re bound to draw some harmful conclusions. You run the risk of eating a handgun among other perils. Or turning it on your tormenters which is more my style. I was looking back fondly on running that saber right through Professor Coffin. It was the precise point when things got squirrelly but I would do it again in a heartbeat. It just felt right to kill that costumed fool.

  Perhaps the heavily armed militants within the glass Cadillac could offer some guidance to the newly shipwrecked in Old Havana in glass before this madness became a habit.

  What were the proper steps to take next? Resort to cannibalism? Embrace island alcoholism? Teach literacy at glass Alcatraz? Hurl yourself into the bubbling lake of rum as a human sacrifice to the indifferent gods that were playing tiddlywinks with your person in their heavens?

  As always, what is a gentleman to do next when these ceaseless challenges of an indeterminate nature are dumped into his lap like so much cosmic trash? What to do with black holes, for example? Is it even a decision?

  “Welcome to The Crypt Island School for Witches,” the wolfhound said.

  He rolled down the window of the glass Cadillac slow. He showed us his face. He let us get a good look at it. He pulled a black mask down over his face. It was real horror show.

  He pointed a shotgun out the window at us. He racked a round into the chamber. What’s the point of having a pump shotgun if you aren’t going to rack a round into it? You’ve got to make those victims shudder.

  Finally we had found a sensible creature to barter with. Perhaps we could cheat him out of his continent with mere trifles. We just had to get around the shotgun. How many trinkets was this world worth to this armed wolfhound?

  “Kaiser,” Madison said. “What are you doing here?”

  The King of the Wombats was the ruler of this world?

  “He’s chilling,” I said.

  “Put your telescopes where I can see them,” Kaiser said.

  We held our telescopes out for inspection. I didn’t realize that my telescope was also a weapon. I was fingering it a little more fondly now that it was an implement of destruction. I could see a little gleam in Madison’s eye too. Professor Coffin was holding his as if it were a bomb about to go off and separate him bodily from his appendages.

  Our telescopes were dangerous. Our telescopes were bad news. This was very good news. I knew the signs and symbols were starting to shift towards us. I could sense that the ogre on the end of the dock with the lamp was about to let us cross. He was gesturing for us with his hairy knuckles out on the horizon.

  “Put your telescopes over your head for your own safety,” Kaiser barked. “Put them up where I can see them.”

  We raised our telescopes over our heads for our own safety. What harm could there be in complying with the proper authorities of Crypt Island now that we were armed illegal immigrants newly shipwrecked into this strange world? The logic of this world was becoming clearer. Or perhaps it was becoming vagu
er and that accounted for the clarity. Finally something was happening. Nobody could argue with that. Kaiser was also looking like a pretty good suspect for the director of the magical test. My first brush with Coffin Island was with him. Madison was peering at him quite murderously too. Why wouldn’t witchcraft have a talking wolfhound run the whole show? It was all becoming deliciously clear to me.

  “Welcome to Old Havana in glass,” Kaiser laughed. “You can lower your telescopes now for your own safety. An elephant parrot might peck your arm off. Every creature on this island is starving to death.”

  “I’m a bit peckish myself,” Professor Coffin proclaimed.

  We walked down the glass shoreline boulevard towards the glass Cadillac. Kaiser was backing up the glass Cadillac as we walked towards him. Perhaps he was the ogre at the end of the dock. He was enjoying keeping the glass Cadillac just beyond our reach. It was rolling just beyond our grasp. The headlights were green like Gatsby’s fabled dock. I wondered how many books were under the hood.

  The Coffin Island library had somehow relocated itself inside the glass Cadillac. The books were swimming around in the glass Cadillac like fish in a tank. Flash was hunkering down. He was minding his fiery business in the muffler. Was this glass Cadillac a vehicle of higher learning? Was this magical motor vehicles powered by the written word? Or did it burn books to get where it was going?

  “We don’t want to take you prisoner,” Kaiser said as he backed up the glass Cadillac.

  I watched Flash devour a book.

  “Stop fooling around jailor,” Professor Coffin bellowed.

  “Get out of my prison,” Kaiser said and drove forward.

  Flash ate another book.

  “I demand to commune with my cot,” Professor Coffin said. “I’m aged and I’m exhausted.”

  “He’s on his fourth century on the lam,” Madison snorted.

  “We aren’t taking you prisoner,” Kaiser said and threw the glass Cadillac in reverse.

  The glass Cadillac was definitely running on books. At least something was running on something. It was something definitive to hold on to. Books were powering the glass Cadillac. Knowledge was gasoline in this world. You just had to find a fire to throw it on. Perhaps the lake of fire was where the graduation ceremonies took place.